by Bruce, Leo
She opened her bag and handed Carolus a red comb.
“Might be a man’s or a woman’s,” she said. “There’s nothing to tell. It was on the floor not far from where the pistol was.”
“Pity you didn’t tell the police. It must have been smothered in finger-prints.”
“Oh, I don’t believe in all that. That’s how they got my son. You can keep it now if you like. It may help you to find out something. I’ve never said anything about it.”
“Thanks,” said Carolus. Examining it, he asked: “Did you ever know Richard to invite any woman alone to the flat? Either before he married or since? ”
“Not to the flat. But I have heard Talk. I don’t suppose it’s anything to go on, and the woman who told my niece was one who’d talk about anything.”
“What was the story, Mrs Tuck? ”
“I don’t like to repeat it, really. Only I suppose it doesn’t matter now he’s Gone. It was something about a woman out at Flogmore.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a village about five miles away. Well, it was a village. I don’t know what They’ll do to it now. Turn it into another of these concentration camps like Maresfield, I dare say. But this wasn’t in the village. This woman was supposed to be a gamekeeper’s wife. Her husband had a cottage right in the woods, I believe.”
“Do you know the name? ”
“No. I only just heard the story. I might not have heard that, only my niece lives in Flogmore. She’s married to a postman there. There may not be anything in it, but it won’t hurt Richard repeating it now.”
Carolus drank the last of his cowslip wine and prepared to depart.
“You be careful driving now,” said Mrs Tuck. “If you have an accident They’ll swear you was drunk and put you in prison for the rest of your life, and very likely me as well for giving it to you. They can’t See In here, that’s one thing, though I caught one at the window the other day. Said he’d come from the Health Department and was entitled to look before making his report. I tell you, They stop at nothing. So you go carefully.”
“Thank you, Mrs Tuck. I always do. You’ve been most helpful.”
She came to the door and pointed to a man down the road who carried a brief case.
“That’s one of Them,” she said. “He comes to inspect Mrs Rudd’s little girl because someone told Them she slapped her for disobedience. They’ll have her up, next.”
Carolus made no comment as they drove away and Priggley was content to quote “‘ This other Eden, demi-Paradise ‘.”
They were fortunate enough to find Mrs Romary at home. Her likeness to her brother Alan was at once apparent, but Carolus saw little in her dumpy and cheerful manner to suggest that she wished, as Pippa had said, to perpetuate her widowhood. She seemed even a little too cheerful for a member of a close-knit family which had been recently and dramatically bereaved.
“Alan said you would be coming to see me,” she said. “I can’t think how I can help you, but I’ll certainly tell you anything I know.”
“Thank you. May I just ask the formal questions first. Where were you on Saturday evening? ”
“Here,” said Mrs Romary promptly. “I did not go out at all.”
“When did you last see Richard? ”
“At Alan’s on the afternoon before. We were playing tennis.”
“Did you hear from him after that? ”
“Yes. He rang me up on Saturday evening.”
“Can you remember the time? ”
“Not to the minute. I should say between eight-thirty and nine.”
“Was it about anything important? ”
“Not really. He often rang up for a chat.”
“Did he say where he was? ”
“He said he was at home. He was going to listen to a Beethoven Trio at 9.15.”
“Perfectly calm? ”
“You know, Mr Deene, when a thing like this happens one simply doesn’t know how much one has imagined afterwards. I have a sort of feeling now that he wasn’t at home because that would mean that almost certainly he was in bed. The phone’s beside his bed and he liked lying there and chatting. He may have been, but as I remember it now he did not sound really relaxed.”
“That’s very interesting. But the impression was not strong enough to strike you at the time? ”
“I suppose not. I dare say I’ve created it after hearing what has happened.”
“Not necessarily. Now there’s something else I have to ask you about. This, too, may be all imagination, though not mine. I have been told that your cousin … at least that there was talk about him and some woman out at Flogmore …”
Carolus was interrupted by Olivia Romary’s rather loud laughter.
“What a place this is for scandal! Anything more absurd you could not imagine. I know exactly who you mean, but how such a story can have circulated I don’t know. Were you told the name? ”
“No. Only that she is a gamekeeper’s wife.”
“That’s it! Florrie Lamplow. How ridiculous! We all knew Florrie and her husband, Tom Lamplow. Years ago, when Keith was quite a young boy, we took him out to Flogmore woods for a picnic and Tom Lamplow caught us trespassing. The shooting is hired by a syndicate which employed Tom, and he was just doing his job. But being a nice fellow and seeing that we were doing no harm he ended by joining us. You see, Mr Deene, whatever else my aunt is, she isn’t a snob.
“After that it became a privilege of ours to picnic in the woods, and we often went to the Lamplows’ cottage. Florrie was quite young then—well, she must be about thirty-three now. Rather a nice-looking woman. They were childless and she was devoted to Tom. They became friends of the family. They gave me my dog, a spaniel, when it was quite a pup. To suggest that there was anything between Richard and Florrie is simply malicious on someone’s part.”
“I quite believe that. Pueblo chico, enfierno grande is a Spanish proverb I’ve never found to fail.”
“Meaning? ”
“A small place, a big hell.”
“You haven’t heard the rest of the story. Poor Tom died, only about ten days ago, after an operation in the hospital here in Maresfield. Since then Florrie’s been preparing to leave the cottage. We were awfully sorry for her. Only last Friday morning I motored out with Keith to see her and hear what she planned to do.”
“You have a car, Mrs Romary? ”
“Certainly. You don’t think I’d be driven by Keith in that sports car of his. No thank you. His brother’s just as bad a driver. Anita always insists on driving when they go out. We saw Florrie. She said she had to leave because the syndicate want the cottage for a new gamekeeper. She couldn’t stay there alone, in any case; it’s right out in the woods. No drainage or anything but rather pretty, like the gingerbread house. We found her packing-up. She was going back to Norfolk from which both she and Tom came. She said she wouldn’t miss the people hereabouts because she had scarcely had anything to do with them, but she would miss her little house. It was thatched, you know, with latticed windows. Of course she missed Tom most of all. We tried to persuade her to stay in Maresfield, but there wasn’t a hope. She had packed and was leaving ‘any time now’ she said. She was a loyal soul and missed her husband dreadfully. You see how beastly it was of someone to suggest anything between her and Richard? ”
“He may have met her in the town or given her a lift or something. It would be quite enough to start what Mrs Tuck calls ‘Talk’.”
“Oh, it was from Mrs Tuck you heard it? That explains it. That woman would say anything.”
“On the contrary, Mrs Tuck didn’t believe it. She told it me when I pressed her on a certain point, but only as Talk.”
“Still, she told you.”
“Whatever else Mrs Tuck may be I believe she is honest in her opinions,” said Carolus.
“I’m sorry. I never liked or trusted her. And she could be abominably rude.”
“That’s sometimes an accomplishment,” said Carolus smiling.
“I’m quite upset to hear there has been talk of Richard and Florrie, though. If you had known both of them you would understand, I’m sure. She gave me a present, by the way, when we were out last Friday. All very mysterious. ‘Come up to my room because I’ve got something for you.’ Keith wasn’t even allowed to see it. It was an old sampler, lovely thing really. She didn’t know who had done it, but she’d had it from her grandmother. Yes, we shall all miss Tom and Florrie.”
Carolus stood up.
“Thank you for all you’ve told me,” he said.
When they were in the car making for home Rupert asked why the family was ‘so much against Mrs Tuck’.
“Because she’s against them, I think. Don’t you see, they are Them to her? All except Richard and Pippa.”
12
KEITH came to lunch next day, arriving at the house in a sports car. He looked so young that Carolus was able to explain him to Mrs Stick as a friend of Rupert Priggley’s.
“I’m depending on you for a mass of information,” said Carolus. “I gather you knew Richard well.”
“Yes, I did. And Pippa. I always liked her. She never seemed to mind my coming round and babbling with Richard. I did quite a lot of that, too. He was the only person in Maresfield who seemed to understand.”
“What? ”
“Well, me, I suppose.”
“Are you another of these mixed-up kids, Keith? ”
“Not really. Only I want to do things and I can never
understand what. I tried to paint some time ago and one or two people seemed to think I had something. But I don’t know. Richard wanted me to take music seriously.”
“You write, too?”
“No; that at least I know I can’t do.”
“I hear you have plans for starting a repertory theatre.”
“Who told you that? It would be a good idea, you know. I don’t believe television’s got all that grip.”
“What did Richard think about that? ”
“He was interested.”
“And your aunt? ”
“I had not put it to her seriously. It was only an idea. But I could count on Richard to listen to whatever I was trying to do at the moment. So I did see quite a lot of him.”
“During that last week? ”
“Yes. He seemed perfectly all right. Rather cheerful, if anything. I think, you know, he always believed Pippa would come back to him.”
“He seems to have been in some things unnaturally placid.”
“Not exactly placid. Rather lazy. Fatalistic, you know. The last person one would expect to commit suicide. They say it is the last person one expects who does.”
“Often, yes.”
They were sitting in a little paved space outside the french windows and in the August heat the garden looked fulsomely bright. Mrs Stick came to know if they wanted drinks brought out.
“What will you have, Keith? ”
“Gin, please. Lots of ice. Tonic, soda or whatever you have.”
“Same for me,” said Priggley, but Carolus told Mrs Stick to bring him a beer and a dry sherry for himself.
Carolus knew how to ask disturbing questions.
“Are you going to marry Wilma Day? “he said abruptly.
Keith reacted with all the violence one could expect. He spluttered over his drink and said, “Wilma Day? ”
“Yes. Or doesn’t your aunt approve? ”
Keith forced a smile.
“You seem to have learned a great deal about us all,” he said.
“And you want to know how much,” said Carolus good-humouredly. “Then let me tell you I know you intended to spend that week-end with Wilma Day at the bungalow at Marling Flats, that you were prevented from joining her on Saturday by the arrival of Pippa at Lady Drum-bone’s, and on Sunday by the discovery of Richard Hoys-den’s body. That you finally went to fetch her on Monday morning.”
Keith looked blank.
“Did she tell you? ”
“I have never met her.”
“It’s true, so far as it goes. Yes, I do want to marry Wilma.”
“And your aunt?”
“I just don’t know. We’ve never dared let her guess. She doesn’t guess, does she? ”
“Not that I know of. You must allow me to keep my sources of information to myself.”
“This is his favourite line,” said Priggley. “I try to make him see how corny it is, but nothing can be done.”
“I shall have to tell her sooner or later, I suppose, about Wilma and our plans for a repertory theatre …”
“Oh, Wilma’s in that, too? ”
“Very much. I want to direct it. I think that’s what I really could do, run a theatre. But Wilma’s been keen about it from the first. I’m not sure it wasn’t her idea.”
“I don’t see why you should anticipate opposition from your aunt, to either of your projects.”
“Nor do I, really. It’s just that I haven’t had the guts to tell her yet. She certainly won’t like losing Wilma, who’s a first-rate secretary.”
“Does it cost much to start a repertory theatre? ”
“Well, we’ve got the place for it. There’s a great barn which somehow escaped the town planners. Magnificent it is, one of the largest in the south of England. It would make a perfect theatre. The old idea—barn-stormers, you see. I’ve no use for all these amateur theatricals of Toffin’s. I want the real thing. With a capital of five thousand pounds I believe we could start it.”
“So why not?”
“Oh, we shall. Only this thing about Richard has upset everything. A suicide …”
Mrs Stick, coming out to announce lunch, caught the last word and gave Carolus what is rightly but too often called a withering look.
“Lunch is served,” she said, and her words might have been ‘the tumbrils are waiting’. She whispered something to Priggley.
“She’d like us to go in at once because it’s a soufflay, she says.”
Not the keenest hearing on Mrs Stick’s part could detect during lunch a word which suggested that Keith was not a friend of Priggley’s. Cricket was discussed, Wimbledon and Stirling Moss.
But when Mrs Stick had left the coffee on the table Carolus returned relentlessly to the matter in hand.
“Tell me,” he said to Keith, “you knew Richard. What did you think when you heard he had shot himself? ”
“I was shaken, of course. I never dreamt he had it in mind. Yet somehow I did not find it incredible. He was in some ways rather reserved. I mean, I was surprised, yes. but not so astounded as I might have been. But when I heard the recording then I really wouldn’t believe it. Richard simply couldn’t strangle a woman.”
“There seems to be fairly general agreement on that point.’
“And anyway, they would know now, surely? They would have found her, whoever she was? For once my aunt was right, I believe. He imagined it.”
“Let’s put that aside for the moment, Keith, and stick to the recording. Richard says he killed someone whom he both hated and loved. He talked of her ‘white on the green ground’. If he had even contemplated taking someone that evening to a lonely place and strangling her, can you suggest where it might have been? ”
“Yes, but it wasn’t. The bungalow, I mean. Wilma was there at the time.”
“Nowhere else? ”
“I suppose there are thousands of places. I can’t think of anywhere in particular. Unless …”
“Yes? ”
“Do you think he might have gone to a place he knew well? Which we all knew well? ”
“Possibly. Why? ”
“Flogmore woods! “said Keith. “I don’t know why I never thought of it before. We’ve been there scores of times for picnics. The keeper’s a friend of ours, or was, poor chap. He died recently. If you’re going to suppose the thing at all, that Richard was looking for a place in which to murder someone, that would be it.”
“The wood’s large? ”
“Very.
I forget how large. Several hundred acres, anyway. But he knew it well, as we all did. We had a number of favourite spots for picnics, and Richard could find his way to them in the dark.”
“Just so. In the dark.”
“Mind you, it still seems fantastic to me. But that would have been the place.”
“It may have been,” said Carolus grimly.
“You mean?”
“You should know better than I. Suppose your cousin murdered someone that evening, as he claims to have done, either in these woods or somewhere else. Suppose he took or simply left the body there. Could it have escaped discovery? ”
“God! I see what you mean. So far as that’s concerned it might not be found for a long time till a new keeper is appointed. Perhaps not even then if it was well hidden. But can you really suppose . .”
“I’m pretty sure of one thing. We ought to take a look at Flogmore woods and visit all the spots that were particularly known to Richard. Will you come, Keith? ”
“Of course I’ll come. I want to see Florrie Lamplow again, anyway. That’s the keeper’s wife. We’ve known her for ages and she’s leaving one day soon if she hasn’t already left. Going back to her home in Norfolk. You’ll like her.”
“That’ll be a change,” said Priggley. “Up to now this case of Carolus’s has produced one of the ghastliest collections of women I remember. Except that redhead in the shop.”
“Liz Gibbons, you mean? “said Keith smiling.
“I don’t know her name. But what about Hipps? ”
“Louise? She’s always been a bit of a joke. Madly in love with Richard, I believe.”
“And that drip Hilda in the Norfolk Hotel? ”
“She hasn’t much joie de vivre, I admit.”
“I have not met your respected aunt, but I can’t say I’m mad about your brother’s wife.”
“Anita tries to be a bit grand, but she’s not a bad sort, really. What about Mrs Tuck, though? ”
“Oh, I like Mrs Tuck,” said Priggley.
“No one else does.”
“I’m sure Rupert’s prejudices are interesting,” interrupted Carolus, “but there are one or two more points which I wanted to discuss with you, Keith. The pistol, for instance.”